Book Two

She turns onto the road with a screech. Frank sits up. He pulls the knife from his stomach. He feels the fire in his eyes as the color disappears from his face and the blood seeps into his hands. Home.

She whispers her shouts of elation. The first rays of early sunlight peek through her cupped hand. Mooreston is beautiful in the morning. The Jackhammer’s firing up a plate of pancakes. She pats Frank on the shoulder, a pat of rapturous victory, of being right.

–– There it is! There it is! See? Told you so. Angry tracks. Beady was right, he knows where everything is, where everyone is. If you ask him right.

Frank sees it: the brownstone and the black Plymouth. The headlight is missing. The car isn’t engulfed in flames. It sits, parked in front of the fire hydrant, up on the curb a little, as though the events of the night hadn’t happened, as though nothing had happened between its doors, as though the girl standing next to him wasn’t wearing a mask of powder and thread. He sees the fire through her mask. Angry tracks.

–– It’s not gonna explode so we don’t have to worry about you jumping me again. You’re not gonna jump me again, are you Mister?

Frank kicks away the shattered and car-flung remnants of his board, the foundation of all he could offer the world: cheap ink drawings in black and white of an ideal where heroism and simplicity reigned, where virtue stamped out the ashen gray lockstep march of life and for just a minute, an hour, a day, made you believe that it wasn’t all lost. He picks up Sal’s ink-encrusted dial. He fumbles it in his hands, sensation returning to his mangled fingers.

He sits on the bench. He’s lost two hours and eleven minutes but another will show in three minutes and nineteen seconds.

The bus pulls to the stop. The door opens. The bus squeaks. Frank’s nose fills with diesel and the weary sweat of third shifters heading home. He stuffs one of her dollar bills in the change tray, borscht and chicken rising up. He smiles at George.

But George is running late. Two empty bottles. Extra long break, you lush. But we’ll get there. That’s what he always says. We’ll get there, Frankie, don’t ya worry. I know how important it is to ya. Ya. Not You. Zigetti – Spaghetti’s lawn’s patchy. Heard that story a thousand times. Wasn’t interesting then, won’t be now. Cookie runs out to greet me with a snarl.

The porch needs a coat of paint. I was too busy. I had to provide. My work provided. It would provide more. Just that one thing. Needed more time, that’s all. Get the right person to see it. Get everything back on track.

–– You ever play with string figures Mister? Ever show Sammy how to do those?

Thirty-five minutes, twenty-two seconds.

Frank trudges forward, his head to the street, scanning the tracks that dance over it, searching for the right tracks. The average wheel width of a city bus is approximately eight point two-five inches. Factoring in frequent stops, proximity to the curb and George’s half-a-bottle-a-break driving style they are simple to spot, even amidst the cacophony of tread echoes that gash the snow-covered street and point the way Home.

–– That’s what these things remind me of. These tracks. I just wanna take my hands into ‘em and make ‘em into something, you know? Cat’s Cradle is a good starter, if you want to get Sammy going on ‘em. It’s what I learned with. Hey, maybe I’ll teach him.

She skates across each frozen puddle, cracking thin ice, punctuating the brightness of her every limped step. She studies The Comic.

The crack of rolled-up paper against his cheek shocks him into consciousness.

–– Wakey wakey Mister.

He wipes the grime and snow from his face. She comes into focus, a shattered mirror of the Winged Angel she would have become under the stroke of his brush, her face swollen in a smattering of yellow and purple, her right eye surrounded by a blackened ring. Blood crusts on her split lip and meets the gash on her chin. It dams the cascade of red curls. Her silver necklace is gone, replaced by a necklace of scratches. She shivers. She rolls Sammy’s Comic tight.

–– Mister, who’s Sammy? You kept talking about him when your face was in the curb. Sammy Sammy Sammy.
–– How long was I out?
–– Dunno. Maybe ten minutes.
–– Ten? Exactly ten?
–– Okay, okay. Maybe eleven. Mister. Who’s Sammy?
Frank staggers to the bench. He brushes off the remnants of Sal. Goodbye old friend. She joins him. He reaches for The Comic. She pulls away.

The cold stings his eyes and stabs his throat. The wheels of his dolly screech. Out of breath, he stops. He waves his arms. The dolly drops to the road. The Mooreston 815 pulls away.

Another in fifty-eight minutes and thirty-six seconds. And then another thirty-two minutes and seventeen seconds to reach Sammy. They made him late. Sammy will be fast asleep. Don’t want to wake him. But she will. It’ll be worth it. She’s reading him his story by now. He always loved that story. Always wanted to know how Uncle Wiggly’s toothache would get better, even after a thousand and three times. Daddy read it again. Daddy will read it again, Sammy. Fifty-eight minutes, seven seconds. Daddy will read it again. And Daddy will have a new story to tell.

It’s just me and George on the bus. We share the bottle. A celebration. To families reunited, we say. About damn time too, Frankie. He pulls up to the stop. Summit Lane, Frankie, now get on home. Even offers me the bottle.

One hundred forty-seven and one half steps from the intersection. Eight houses down.

The neighborhood hasn’t changed a day. There’s Mr. Zigetti – Spaghetti’s lawn, perfect as always. I love hearing his stories. There’s Cookie’s doghouse. There’s Brett’s ball in the front lawn, still scuffed from bouncing off a tree one too many times. Sammy used to sit in the window and watch Brett kick that ball around, same time every day. 2:15PM. I told him to go out and play. He came back at 2:20 with a scraped knee. He wanted a bandage, one of those with magic healing powers, a magic bandage.

I stand in front of the red door, the one that made us fall in love with the place, our first home. The front porch hasn’t changed a bit. I still need to repaint it. Always said I would.

Our special knock is the rhythm of our first dance. I can’t remember the name of the tune, but I remember the way we let it move us, that rhythm, that beat.